Did anyone come prepared?

Some companies were already working with risk management including a certain probability that there may be a form of an epidemic arising. But in the end, the ones surviving, won’t be the ones who had the best plan and risk manager in place, but the ones being most flexible and adaptable. Darwin seems to have been right after all; “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.”

Two different organizations

There are two different models of organizations. On one hand, there is the “traditional” one, which is hierarchically built with centralized leadership and with concentrated workforce, and the people employed being mostly specialists as well as policy-, and procedure driven. And, on the other hand, there is the “modern” one, working more like a network with distributed leadership, dispersed workforce and employees being generalists and cross-trained as well as guided by simple yet flexible rules.

Which of them will survive?

It is not hard to figure out which of them will survive better in the current situation. The second type of organization is better in evolving and adapting to new unpredictable circumstances. Even if companies and people already made a detailed plan or are having specialized teams to prepare for a situation like Covid-19, the question is: what if this team is removed? Companies should not rely solely on a specialized risk management team to see them through a crisis. Organizational preparedness is key – developing a simple structure to be followed throughout the company.

A simple organizational structure is the key

People that can coordinate and adapt to new unpredictable situations are valuable. The ones that are good at sensing threats, coordinating, responding and sensing again. Also, the ones that are easily finding immediate solutions, no matter what, as well as the ones being aware of possible capabilities and cooperations, even if this means cooperating with competitors to develop a new product or service.

Crisis management starts from the top

Although there are experts managing crisis, the best crisis management is to prepare ourselves. This means, being strong in times of uncertainty and developing a culture of support and flexibility. Creating organizations that are strong in uncertainty requires a new mind-set – and that must be driven from the top down. This is how companies will not only survive this pandemic, but also any upcoming unpredictable scenarios arising in the future.